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| | Celebrating MothersHistory
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Opinion |
Momma
Always Said by David Knape 5-11-13In
Times of Need by Bruce Martin 5-1-13
My mother was
one of those benevolent individuals, consistent and dependable.When
the Worm Turns or Rites of Spring by Frances Giles 4-7-13
The
advent of warmer weather to the upper Texas Gulf Coast means different things
to different people, but to my mother it meant it was time to give the house a
good scrubbing and time to worm the kids.
My Granny's Apron Strings
by Frances Giles 2-7-13
My maternal Czech grandmother,
for whom I was named, was a warm, sweet presence in my childhood, and I always
felt her unconditional love and approval. Lame
Christmas Gifts: It Is Harder to Receive Than to Give by Maggie Van Ostrand
12-30-12
After Christmas, my refrigerator door has more macaroni art
than a Sicilian pasta factory...Talking To
Mom by David Knape 12-30-12The
Day Mother Became Attached to her Clothesline by Jesse Suttles
12-19-12Catastrophic
Coiffures by Frances Giles 12-2-12
Mama and many
other mothers across the US got a good bit of help in corralling their daughter's
manes, namely in the form of the Tonette home permanent...Birth
by David Knape 11-25-12Putting
up peaches brings back memories by Delbert Trew 10-23-12
My
mother devised a recipe even cowboys could produceLa
Tipica by
Wanda Orton 10-2-12
An
all-girl orchestra from Baytown’s Mexican community -- played an important role
in local musical entertainment from here to California... “There was always a
community dance on the Saturday night before Mother’s Day… We would then go to
the home of each of the orchestra members and sing and play ‘Las Mańanitas’ for
each mother."... Ashbel
Smith's Foster Daughter by Wanda Orton
9-14-12
Native Baytonian and retired Lee College professor
Robert “Bob” Wright has many recollections of his grandmother, Anna Allen Wright,
foster daughter of Dr. Ashbel Smith... Beaumont
to Caldwell With a Boogie Woogie Beat
by Frances Giles 9-14-12
Mama's name was Estelle and
that woman loved music. She liked Big Band, Country and Western, especially Western
Swing, “church music” and gospel, rhythm and blues, almost any genre, and she
heavily favored anything with a lively beat... Blind
Drunk in Beaumont by Frances Giles 8-17-12
Cleaning
Day in BeaumontMomma's
Quilt by David Knape 8-8-12Mother
by Maggie Van Ostrand
5-5-12
A
beautiful woman is queen of every room she enters. Conversation hushes, people
turn to look, and the center of attention falls upon her. My mother was not like
that... Faithful
wife, dutiful daughter by
Wanda Orton 3-2-12
Sarah Williams was one of those stoical pioneer women who kept things in order
single-handedly on the home front...Country
Living in the Mid-1900’s by Bruce Martin 2-23-12
"Grandma
cooked meals on a wood-burning stove and oven; she had that down to a science,
as I cannot remember eating tastier home-cooked meals and bakery goods."
Water
producers, grandmas make miracles
by Delbert Trew 6-14-11
Of all the strange, weird and
confusing bits of history, none quite compare with rain dancers, water witchers
and grandmas. Each could perform miracles if the sign was right, a fresh peach
tree twig was used or the malady could be cured with Castor Oil or Black Draught
Tonic...Thank
you from San Francisco
from Susan Fry 6-2-11
"...Thanks for bringing her
back into the room for a moment... I do have to visit the Panhandle some day.
My mother said it was awful -- yet all her life she had an affection for the people
and the culture... she never lost that. And, reading about the place now, I realize
how enormously who she was had to do with where she was from..."What
Do You Want For Your Birthday? Or, It Won't Be What You Asked For by Maggie
Van Ostrand 5-20-11
I'm sick and tired of people not
listening when you answer their question, "What do you want for your birthday?"
I suppose my kids are getting even for me giving them things they hated when they
were little, like instead of the toys they wanted, they got underwear and socks.
Well, revenge may be sweet, but not to the revengee.... LBJ
and Sad Irons by Clay Coppedge 9-10-10
As Johnson
biographer Robert Caro pointed out, “Without electricity, even boiling water was
work.” Water was hauled by hand from a well or creek and carried to the house.
It took about 40 gallons of water a day to run a farm, which meant a lot of trips
from the well to the house. Lyndon’s reluctance to help his mother with pumping
and hauling water was a source of constant friction between the future president
and his father... Kate
Polly's Pancakes by Mike Cox 6-3-10
Next
time you fry a stack of pancakes, imagine what it would be like if your life and
the well-being of your children depended on it.Wash
Day: Drudgery Through the Centuries by Robert Cowser 4-1-10
When
I read Letitia Barbauld’s poem “Wash-Day,” written in the eighteenth century,
I was struck by certain similarities between the plight of the laundresses in
the poem and my mother’s struggle to provide clean laundry for our family of five...Sabotage
by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 12-18-09
By the time you
read this the wedding we have been planning and working toward for the last nine
months will be all over. The bride is doing fine as I write this two days before
the ceremony... MOB
vs. MOG by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 9-24-09
This is
my first go around as Mother of the Bride and it’s been fine so far. We’ve got
the gown, got the favors, lined up the photographer, talked to the wedding coordinator
at the church. Yesterday we lucked onto just what we were needing... Parade
honoring mothers-in-law drew thousands by Delbert Trew 6-16-09
The
story begins in the hard, dry, financially troubled year of 1934 when Gene Howe,
editor and publisher of the Amarillo Globe-News Corporation and his "Tactless
Texan" newspaper column somehow offended his mother-in-law Nellie Donald... An
Evening In Paris With Mom
by Maggie Van Ostrand
"Someone was wearing Evening In Paris perfume the
other day. The scent of it instantly reminded me of Mom; I haven't smelled Evening
In Paris since we lost her, yet its fragrance transported me back to my childhood
and to the Mother's Day when I spilled a precious bottle of it."An
Introduction of Two Persons 3-9-09
From "The
Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After"
“Make
the world a bit more beautiful and better because you have been in it.” Juicy
TomaToes by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 4-11-09
Here’s
a news flash – I am crazy about my daughters. I am thinking about them because
they are out of town today. And it occurs to me that the word "love" is entirely
insufficient. One word is not enough for it... Milton’s
Rosenberg Library by Bill Cherry 4-3-09
Tripo and
Adele made sure that Milton and Elaine learned to pride Galveston, a city where,
for an example, all of the knowledge they could ever possibly need was in store
for them at the Rosenberg Library, and at no cost. Adele took them there every
week... “And
His Mama Cries” by N. Ray Maxie 4-1-09
“And His Mama
Cries” is words in the lyrics of a popular song titled “In The Ghettos” sung by
Elvis Presley. I remember well, hearing the recording real frequently when, during
the 1960's and ‘70's, I regularly worked the late night shift in and around Houston’s
big notorious ghettos. But this story is about a different time and different
place. Many years and much distance removed from the above.Drivin’
Me Crazy by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 8-26-09
In just
a few short weeks my youngest child will get his learner’s permit... Wedding
Belles by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 3-27-09
Older Daughter
is getting married... I learned very early on in the planning process exactly
what my role will be... Wedding
Nightmare by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 8-3-09
It is
approximately 140 days until the wedding and some hidden time bomb of a countdown
timer in my brain must have just kicked on. I can imagine it like a big red alarm
clock – the old fashioned kind with two bells on top – nestled snugly in the soft
folds of my gray matter tick tock, tick tocking away... How
Women Think or How They Don’t Think by Peary Perry 3-25-09
Your
child can be fifty years old and their mother will still have their drawings from
the first grade....
My Funny Valentine
by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 2-7-09
I have received some
wonderful gifts from my children over the years. I have received many different
things, necklaces, bracelets, fairies, angels, boys and girls, made out of macaroni.
I have received glazed and fired clay elephants, rhinos, fairies, angels, boys
and girls... But I wanted to tell you about my best Valentine. Mother’s
Wash Day Monday on the Farm by N. Ray Maxie 2-1-09
Throughout the years, on our family farm at least, sure as death and taxes, Mondays
were always wash day...No
Place for Sissies by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 1-9-09
Bette Davis is famously quoted as saying, “Old age ain’t no place for sissies.”
I’m here to tell you, if you haven’t had the dubious pleasure of discovering it
for yourself, that taking care of elderly parents is no picnic either. And it
is an experience that more and more of us are going to be sharing as the years
pass. October
Barrel by Mike Cox 9-25-08
Eight-year-old Viola
Helen Anderson did not grasp that the U.S. stood on the brink of a financial crisis
that would come to be called the Panic of 1906. All the San Angelo girl cared
about was that her daddy had died... Pickle
Intervention by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 10-1-08
It
is a sad day when a young adult child is confronted with the realization that
her parents are not super-heroes, that they are not members of some omnipotent,
omniscient, immortal race of superior beings... Turning
into Mom by
Maggie Van Ostrand 5-8-08
Most of us remember our moms with affection, or occasionally, dislike. But we
always remember them, even when they're not around any more. I turned out to be
more like my mom than I could ever have expected...Elective
by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 11-5-07
There are good things
about having grown children and not so good things about it. Big kids are, for
one thing, much harder to cuddle... Big
Babies by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal 5-11-07
"It is a sad day in a mother's life when she suddenly realizes that her daughters
do not consider her to be the font of all knowledge; from what is polite, to what
is fashionable, to when one might reasonably give up on DayQuil and make a trip
to the doctor's office. It is like losing something, losing a public office perhaps,
or ..."
Bad
Mothers by Maggie Van Ostrand 5-11-07
It's difficult
to write this story about University researchers in Canada coming up with the
unpleasant fact that mothers take better care of "good looking" children than
they do "ugly" ones.
Brotherhood of Motherhood
by Peary Perry 4-25-07
There exists in our society today a brotherhood much larger than that of cops.
This is the Brotherhood of Motherhood. Sam's
Mother-in-Law by Mike Cox 3-30-07
"Despite
the rocky beginning of their relationship, Sam Houston treated Mrs. Nancy Lea,
his mother-in-law, with all due respect. He must have learned to accept her eccentricities
as well, like the lard incident..." Autograph
book reveals mother's girlhood by Delbert Trew 2-1-07
...Naoma was only 8 years old and the first entry was by her father who wrote,
"Love many and trust few, but always paddle your own canoe. Respectfully, your
Papa." The second entry was by her mother who penned: "Dear Naoma, Keep a watch
on your words my dear for words are a wonderful thing. They are sweet like the
bee's honey, or like bees they have a terrible sting. Lovingly, your Mama."...
Gram
and Daffodils by Robert Cowser 2-1-07
"One
afternoon in the early spring shortly after my younger brother and I had arrived
home from school, Mary brought Gram, as John called his grandmother, to visit
my family. Mary wanted Gram to meet our family. She also wanted Gram to see the
daffodils in bloom in the pasture across the road from our house..."
Blame
it on the Boogie by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
It was a typical afternoon.
Nothing very exciting, nothing too out of the normal course of an afternoon. I
have been thinking and thinking, trying to define what particular event might
have pushed my youngest son Andy irrevocably into his Adolescent Angst phase...
Mother
by Mike Cox
She used to sit in the lap of the legendary old Texas Ranger Capt.
John R. Hughes and pull his white beard and ask him questions about the Wild West.
She remembered when soldiers on horseback gave a public parade every Sunday at
Fort Bliss... Harvey
Girls and Juke Quarters by Delbert Trew
"My mother was a Harvey Girl...
At 16 years of age, she left home for the first time, signed a Harvey Girl contract
and moved into a room above the restaurant alongside the railroad track at Temple...."
"For the first time in their lives, they had shiny black shoes, hose
and fine underwear, plus black skirts and starched white aprons to wear each day."
... Nesting
by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"...Friends,
something truly wonderful has happened to me and I want to share it for those
of you who are one or two steps behind me on the life experience ladder...."Love
You, Ociffer! by Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
It takes a very special person
to work the night shift successfully.Monsters
of Big Creek by George Lester
A Mother's Wisdom Don't
go Near the Water, Son, Until You Learn to Swim by N. Ray Maxie
My mother,
the kindhearted, nurturing and caring person that she was, became extremely over-protective
of us kids during the 1930's and 40's. She was raised through some mighty tough
times and later, the Great Depression. When
Traveling in Mexico, Leave Your Pantyhose At Home by Maggie Van Ostrand
Meeting the relatives of Keiko, my son Jason's beautiful wife.Bring
Me the Head of My Least Favorite Nephew by John Troesser
In back of many
lunch counters and cash registers in Texas and around the South, there is a sign
that states: "If Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy." It is mildly amusing if
it was a family member who put the sign up. It isn't funny at all if "mama" herself
put it up. This is a story of a son who tried to please "mama" a little too enthusiastically
... Neta's
Snake Tale by Neta Rhyne
"Our oldest daughter started college in
1989 and since employment opportunities are few and far between in remote west
Texas I began looking for ways to make money. One evening while reading the local
paper I came across a want ad which read "Wanted Live Rattlesnakes" will pay $6.00
per pound. Now catching live rattlesnakes was not on my list of things I wanted
to do but considering how many rattlers there are in these parts I figured this
could be a profitable enterprise."Women
Want Details, Men Cut to the Chase by Peary Perry
How come when babies are born, the way men describe them is entirely
different from women?Grandparenthood
by Peary Perry
CARTOONS by Roger T. MooreTonkawas
Tradition 6-11-10 |
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